


but i might like having you about

by maggietheepicruler



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Az is her person, F/M, Song Fic Kinda, and trying to heal, elain is sad, im soft, set sorta after ACOFAS
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-15
Updated: 2019-05-15
Packaged: 2020-03-05 19:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18835021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maggietheepicruler/pseuds/maggietheepicruler
Summary: Elain isn't sure she'll ever be able to love again - not after Greysen, not after everything that happened that day in battle. But Azriel is there for her - and she realizes maybe things aren't so dire after all.





	but i might like having you about

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys :)  
> This lil fic has been in my brain for the last few days, and since I am finally home from school and done with finals I thought I would indulge myself.
> 
> the fic/title are inspired by "Arms Unfolding" by Dodie, which I highly recommend if you want to get your hearts ripped out.
> 
> hope u enjoy <3

Surviving was hard - even surrounded by the people you love. Everything was different after the war - I was different after the war. I had always been a gardener, someone who nurtured life, not someone who took it away. But the war… I’d _stabbed_ the King of Hybern, right through his neck, using Azriel’s blade. He was a bad man, I had to remind herself over and over, lying in bed at night, remembering all of the death and destruction I’d seen that day on the battlefield.  
  
And afterwards - everyone wanted things to be okay, to go back to normal. Feyre and Rhys threw themselves into rebuilding Velaris - and building their life together. Nesta was never around, she was too busy pretending she was fine, even though I knew that she wasn’t. And then there was Lucien, who “wanted to get to know me better,” but I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him - not really. Not more than one word answers to his questions, longing for him to just _leave me alone._  
  
Thinking about anyone like _that,_ after Greysen had just been too painful. So I avoided Lucien whenever I could, being as polite as necessary - hoping that he would just _get the hint._ I knew it wasn’t his fault, not really. Feyre had explained, softly, one afternoon, that it was the mating bond that he said he felt. She told me this, after I had broken down crying about him, because I didn’t know what he _wanted._ So I was patient with him - as patient as I could be.  
  
And in the meantime I gardened. Sometimes, Azriel would join me, never saying a word, just sitting down to weed the gardens at the town house, helping me plant new flowers and a vegetable garden. In a weird way, he was the only person, other than Nuala and Cerridwen, who made me feel normal. The only one who didn’t have _expectations_ about how I was supposed to be feeling. He never pried about my feelings - never asked more than I was willing to tell.  
  
And so I began to tell him things - slowly at first. I told him about my mother, and my father and my life before I was Made. I would talk about Greysen, about the life I saw myself living, before everything changed for me. And he would listen, smiling at happy stories, eyes darkening when I told him sad things, or talked about Greysen, but still he let me tell them. And in return, he would tell me things. He told me all about his mother and his childhood, a story that made me cry softly in the gardens, but he always wiped the tears away. He also told me good stories - about all the hijinks that he, Cassian and Rhysand got into over the years. His stories made me realize things about him that I never noticed before: his quiet but sharp sense of humor, the flecks of green in his hazel eyes.  
  
hadn’t realized it at first, the way my feelings were shifting towards the Illyrian warrior. I had built the walls around my heart so tall and so thick that I was convinced that no one could ever get in - and that I would never let them in. But Azriel… he was different.  
  
"Is there… something going on between you two?” Feyre asked softly one spring afternoon when Elain had come in from gardening with Azriel. He had needed to go up to the House of Wind, and I was planning on helping Feyre with dinner. Things had been getting better - slowly, but I still had my days. Days I couldn’t get out of bed, and nights I woke up crying.  
  
“What do you mean?” I asked my sister, trying to keep the defensiveness out of my voice. I watched as she began preparing dinner, chopping vegetables slowly, her eyes never leaving my face.  
  
“I mean… do you care for one another?” she asked, her voice still soft, as if the man in question were going to appear around the corner.  
  
“Of course I care for him - he’s a dear friend.” I told Feyre, scrubbing my hands clean of the dirt. I was focused on getting it out from under my fingernails when Feyre said:  
  
“You know that’s not what I meant… I see the way you two look at each other.” _The way we look at each other???_ My mind swam with visions of Az’s eyes - the way they softened when he talked about his mother, or about Rhys and Cassian. I saw the way they softened when they met mine. I tried not to think about the way that I often caught myself looking at him while we gardened, the way just looking at him could steady my oncoming anxiety or tears. I shook my head, mostly to myself, before tying my apron around my waist to help my sister with dinner.  
  
“We’re just friends,” I said firmly, picking up another knife to start slicing the loaf of bread on the counter. At that moment Rhysand swept into the kitchen, slinging his arms around Feyre’s waist, and pressing a kiss to her temple.  
  
I watched them - their easy movements, the way they were totally in tune with one another. I tried to stop the ache in my heart, tried to push away the thoughts of Greysen. My heart sunk more as I realized that he never would have been for me what Rhys was for Feyre. We weren’t _mates._ The word felt weird, even in my brain. I had never thought much about mates or soulmates, not until Lucien had claimed I was his. But whatever he felt… I didn’t feel it too. Not even a little bit. In fact… my brain very rarely wandered to my supposed “mate” - not nearly as often as it wandered to… Azriel.  
  
“Hello everyone!” Cassian practically shouted as he strolled into the kitchen, plucking a hunk of bread off of my cutting board. I had only smiled when Feyre scolded him for it. But then I felt _him,_ felt the air shift as Az walked in, saying his hello’s to Feyre.  
  
“Hello Elain,” he said softly when I turned, my eyes locking on his. His hair was damp - it had started to rain after I came in from the garden, and he had just flown back from the house of wind.  
  
“Hi Azriel,” I replied, fighting the blush that was beginning to rise in my cheeks. I didn’t let myself dwell on the thought that _maybe Feyre was right,_ as we brought the food to the dinner table.  
  
\---  
  
The next morning I was out in the garden, tending to the vegetables, when he arrived. We hadn’t spoken much at dinner the night before, but we rarely did. We both preferred the garden as our place to talk - away from prying ears, if not prying eyes.  
  
“Don’t you have important things to be doing?” I teased softly when he sat down next to me. He’d been out here with me nearly every day this week - for varying lengths of time. Sometimes he would just touch down between meetings, said that time in the garden calmed him down.  
  
“This is important to me,” he said, his voice quiet as his gaze met mine. I swallowed hard, and for the second time I thought about my sister’s questions - did I care about him? More than just a dear friend. After Greysen had left me I decided I never wanted to be in love again.  
  
But maybe… maybe with Az I could… try. Try again to find happiness in another person, to share my dreams and desires, and my fears. I wondered, idly, what it would be like to wake up crying from the nightmares, and have someone there who would hold me - hold me until I could fall back to sleep, and not lie for hours - unable to shake the fears that the nightmares were real.  
  
If I was being honest with myself, I could see that with Azriel, more than I ever could with Lucien. I could see him wiping away the tears on my cheeks, kissing my hair and holding me - wrapping his wings around us to block out the world. And, I admitted, in the smallest corner of my brain I _wanted that._ I could feel the walls around my heart, very slowly begin to crack.  
  
“Me too,” I said softly after a moment, when I realized we had been staring at each other in silence. “I like spending time with you” I confessed to him. Scared to put any of myself out there, afraid I would get hurt again.  
  
He nodded, reaching out slowly, and surprising me by taking my hand between his own and squeezing softly. “Thank you,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper, “for letting me in.” I realized, with a start - that he was the only person I _had_ let in. I even kept my sisters at arms length in a way - afraid of letting them see who I was - who I had become since the war. But Azriel… Azriel knew, and he cared for me despite it.  
  
I felt the tears welling in my eyes before they fell - and I knew he could see them too. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice a strangled sob as my tears fell. And then, he surprised me, by reaching out and wrapping his arms around me. He pulled me close to his chest, letting me sob on his shirt, his fingers tracing soothing patterns on my back.  
  
“You’re okay…” he promised, not asking why I was crying, simply letting me get it out. It was in that moment, in his arms, the sound of his heart beating in his chest that I made a decision. I was going to _try._ I was going to try with Azriel, and let myself fall in love again. Because, I realized, I deserved love. I deserved to be cared about in a way that I don’t think Greysen could have ever done, with someone who saw me. Saw my flaws, and imperfections and scars and didn’t care about them. Someone like Azriel.  
  
I looked up at him then, into those warm hazel eyes, full of concern for me. I allowed a small smile, and pressed a soft kiss to his cheek and murmured, “thank you.”  
  
“For what?” he asked, wiping the last of my tears from my cheeks.  
  
“For caring about me, exactly as I am.” I whispered, afraid that if I said them too loudly they would slip away.  
  
“Of course I care about you, Elain,” he told me, and it was enough that the tears began spilling over - but they weren't as sad this time. This time, they were happier tears, and I leaned upward to press a brief, timid kiss to his lips. His eyes widened a little, before leaning down to capture my lips in his again.  
  
The kiss was everything Azriel had been to me - steady and gentle, the lighthouse in the storm that had raged around me this last year. So I kissed him back, and for the first time I didn’t need the power of being a Seer to see what a future with Azriel would look like - days spent gardening together, and being safe in each others arms. In that moment, I felt so sure of this - this new found desire to rebuild things in my life that I didn’t even mind the fact that as we pulled away Feyre was standing in the kitchen window: eyes wide, and a knowing smirk on her face.


End file.
